Interview: Grupo Fantasma

It's obvious that you've been influenced by traditional Latin, Cumbia, Cuban, and funk music. What else influenced your sound? Any particular artists?

Being 11 members, we obviously bring a huge variety of influences to the table. As you said, definitely the Latin, funk and cumbia stuff with influences ranging from the Fania All-Stars and associated artists to The JB’s, Funkadelic and Aniceto Molina to name a few. However, a lot of guys are really into hip-hop, jazz and even metal. People bring those influences to the table when we write, whether it’s Wu-Tang, Slayer, Coltrane or Brujeria, it’s all probably affected our sound however subtly.

What about Fishbone? There are times when we think we hear influences from that classic Ska band.

Definitely. Johnny our drummer, Greg the bassist and myself went to a Fishbone show in Austin at Liberty Lunch in ‘96 or ‘97 and were completely blown away. This was years before Fantasma and to this day we view that show as arguably the best live show we’ve ever seen. Although watching Prince recently, has definitely challenged that notion.

Speaking of Prince, you’ve played a few shows with him – How did you connect with his purple majesty?

The band was invited to do a last minute show at his now defunct 3121 club in Vegas. It was on Thanksgiving last year and we had little notice, the opportunity just came up and we canceled our holiday plans with the hope that the show could lead to some good opportunities. Well, Prince was at the show watching from the sidelines and by the time we got home the next day we found out that he loved the show and wanted us back as the Thursday night house band. We started flying out every Thursday and within a couple months he invited us out to play a now legendary, star-studded Golden Globes after-party in L.A. with him, a private Super Bowl Party for CBS in Miami and a performance with him for the ALMA awards on ABC. We just opened for him and did an after-party in London with him as well.

With almost a dozen members, how do you survive without killing each other on the road?

We travel in two vans most of the time, and that helps ease tensions somewhat. The truth of the matter though, is that we are all really good friends, with the core members going back over 15 years. So yes, we do argue and a lot of times get on each others nerves but we deal with it. You have to be tolerant and willing to compromise. We fight like brothers but can squash things pretty quickly. We also make fun of each other a lot and that somehow helps us get along.

Your live shows are seen as an event. What can the Houston audience expect, and what do you expect from the audience?

We try to bring a high energy show every time we play. We sometimes get complaints if you will, that audience members have no time to even catch there breath because we keep the energy up non-stop. In turn, we expect the audience to enjoy themselves, dance however they want to and stay on their feet all night. We feed off the energy of the crowd when we play, so a responsive, lively and loud audience really allows us to give the best show we possibly can.

If you could be any landmark in Texas, what would it be?

Probably the Congress Avenue Bridge here in Austin, we’d have millions of appreciating fans in the bats that live under the bridge.

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Photo: Daniel Perlaky